


We Found Love in a Hopeless Place

by JustCrushALot



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Angst, Catching feelings is a no, Depression, Emotions, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, Light Smut, Pining, Sad Tobin, Sad and Anxious Christen, curves the word spins the verb, fwb rules, let me tell you how it goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:41:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23911738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustCrushALot/pseuds/JustCrushALot
Summary: Tobin and Christen’s Friends With Benefits rules:Rule #1: Do not catch feelings. Neither of us are secure enough in our mental health to risk it.Rule #2: Do not tell anyone in group. None of them are secure enough in their mental health to learn this.Rule #3: Anyone can call it quits at any time, for any reason, without needing to justify it to the other person.Rule #4: You can ask for anything you want, whenever you want, and the other person will consider the request in good faith.Rule #5: We can’t fix each other. We can only swim beside each other and help remind the other that they probably want to keep swimming, too.
Relationships: Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Comments: 80
Kudos: 335





	1. Mount Vesuvius

**Author's Note:**

> I believe that [Black Lives Matter](https://blacklivesmatter.com). Let's be [antiracist](https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/being-antiracist)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a fic about depression, so...
> 
> TW: depression and discussion of a past suicide attempt (Chapter 2). 
> 
> This fic is not fluffy, but it isn't all sad, either. It's a fic about recovering from loss you didn't realize you'd mind. And, about what it feels like try to move from turning inward to turning back outward again. Depression can be overwhelming, but it isn't necessarily all-consuming. People with depression can still experience joy, laughter, love, and even really hot sex in a parking garage. 
> 
> \---  
> The pandemic has me in my feelings a little, so, I was having trouble writing my other fic (Yours in Another Universe) where things are tooth-achingly sweet right now. I decided to take a break from that AU, and this is what came out.

There are a few things that, just for a moment, allow people to believe that they might defy the laws of physics. Like when you jump forward off of a moving swing. Just at the apex of your trajectory—just before you really feel the pull of gravity—you wonder whether you could prolong that peak _even slightly_ by force of will; you wonder whether you might fly. Then, there’s the moment when you look up at a ceiling fan in motion and track one of the blades with your eyes as it spins. When your eyes lock perfectly with the rhythm, it feels almost like you have slowed time with your gaze. Like, perhaps, you could even turn it back.

Tobin Heath found herself lying on the floor of her apartment watching the ceiling fan in this way, praying that she might reverse time. She was laying on a plush green and brown rug in the center of a bedroom that had just hours before lost its bed. The rug was specifically put in this room to make the space feel less generic, and more like a home. Right now, it felt a bit like her only home. As she reckoned with the futility of her efforts to stop time, she aligned her body with the long edge of the rug, grabbed underneath it and rolled herself into it as if she was a piece of sushi or a body needing to be disposed of in the river.

She took in a deep and long breath, one that caught in her throat and jaggedly pressed through her chest and belly. She heard footsteps climbing the stairs, and a voice calling out her name, but she made no attempt to move.

“Jesus, Tobin, what the fuck are you doing?” A voice rang out from above her as her bedroom door swung open.

“Leave me alone,” she grumbled back.

The visitor placed her foot on the edge of the rug and used her heel to roll it open, freeing Tobin of its confines, leaving her feeling like she’d never be held again.

“Why are you here, Linds? I said I wasn’t in the mood to come over anymore.” Tobin groaned.

“Tobin, don’t be an idiot. I’m here because you dropped your ex off at the airport this afternoon, she moved to a land far away, and then you ghosted me.”

“I didn’t ghost you, I told you I wasn’t coming. I’m fine. Just leave me alone, okay?”

“You didn’t reply to the texts I sent back” Lindsey said, kneeling beside Tobin and placing her hands on Tobin’s shoulders, “You know I’m not going to leave you alone, bud, okay?”

The two sat in silence for a few minutes. Lindsey staring at Tobin; Tobin staring at the ceiling.

“It looks like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, right?” Tobin finally spoke.

“What?” Lindsey furrowed her eyebrows at the prostrate girl as Tobin shifted her eyes from the ceiling into Lindsey’s. 

“The house. With all of her stuff gone, it looks like that scene from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. There are holes and nails and outlines of where things used to belong on walls. It looks like someone took them.”

Lindsey gazes at her with a somber smile as tears fill Tobin’s eyes. She rubs Tobin’s shoulders, “Hey, I know, T. I know this has to feel so weird. Just because it was the right thing for you both doesn’t mean it’s not hard in practice. We can redecorate, okay? We can go to the store today and get anything you want.”

* * *

Tobin had known that this day was coming. For two weeks she’d been steeling herself, but assumed that she would handle the whole thing pretty well. Intellectually, it was for the best. They’d fallen out of love. But, dropping off Shirley at the airport and then returning to a house so obviously half-missing had broken something inside her that she had not even realized existed.

Tobin made a “sad-songs-about-breaking-up” playlist for the ride home from the airport. She’d worried that she might need a soundtrack to remind her to be sad. Still, when Julien Baker’s “Something” came on just as she pulled into the assigned parking spot that she and Shirley had shared in the car they'd purchased together, something snapped. Tobin found herself sitting in the car screaming at the top of her lungs with tears filling her eyes:

_I just let the parking lot swallow me up  
_ _Choking your tires, and kicking up dust  
_ _Asking aloud why you’re leaving  
_ _But the pavement won’t answer me._

When the song ended, Tobin lowered the volume on the car stereo, turned the car off, and made her way inside, powering up her airpods to continue listening to her playlist. She sighed as she turned her key to open the door.

She’d been at a coffee shop all morning, while the movers were at the house with Shirley. She just knew that she couldn’t bear to see strangers splitting her life in two. Movers would never think to look back inside Shirley's textbook from the class where they first met to read the little note Tobin wrote on inside the cover. They’d never sigh as they packed 7, instead of 8 white dishes, remembering how they’d knocked one off of the counter when they first had sex in the kitchen. They wouldn’t even think twice about how they were taking away all of the gifts Tobin bought her. None of it was meaningful to them; they wouldn’t take the time to properly mourn what might have been.

But inadvertently, Tobin set herself up to mourn everything all at once. Upon walking inside, the first thing she noticed was the bookshelf in the entryway. Once an array of photos and novels, it was disheveled, books falling every which way with no bookends to keep them up. Tobin made her way further inside, tracing the faint outline of missing picture frames in the hallway, her eyes clouding with tears. She fingered the holes left by the hooks and wondered why Shirley would have taken them. _Did she feel entitled to half of the picture hooks?_

When she reached the living room, it was to the sound of Bastille’s “Pompeii.”

_But if you close your eyes  
_ _Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?_

She did close her eyes. She breathed in the scent of the apartment, she listened to the walls creak as the wind whipped outside, she shuffled her feet against the threshold where the tile ended, and the carpet began. _It does feel like nothing has changed at all_. When she opens her eyes, though, it felt like she was visiting a relic of her own life. Her own personal Pompeii. She was standing in the ruins of whatever remained from the abrupt natural overthrow of life in the place she called home.

 _How am I going to be an optimist about this_ she pleads aloud with the track, silent tears creating forming down her face. The feeling that her life was now visibly incomplete was something she'd failed to prepare for.

_Oh, where do we begin,  
_ _The rubble or our sins?_

The immense feeling of loss suddenly overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes again, and switched the track, longing for everything in front of her to be a bad dream. She guided herself slowly and blindly by the handrail up to the loft that adjoined their bedroom. Her bedroom. _My bedroom._

All Tobin wanted to do is to curl up in bed and sob into her pillow. As she entered her room, the next song on her playlist, Lord Huron’s “The Night we Met” crescendoed in her ears,

_I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you.  
_ _Take me back to the night we met._  
_I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you.  
_ _Take me back to the night we met._

Tobin ripped out her ear buds and flung them across the room as she found only pronounced marks in the carpeting from where the bed once stood. She’d forgotten that the bed was Shirley’s. Tobin’s bed, the one she’d brought to the apartment, was actually downstairs in the guest room. Shirley had moved everything out of their room before today and had been sleeping downstairs, so Tobin had expected this room to be an untouched sanctuary from the chaos outside—a place where she had already moved on from Shirley. But, it wasn’t. A piece of Shirley had still been there the whole time.

Gravity overwhelmed Tobin then. She fell to her knees and laid down on the green and brown carpet they’d purchased to make their room feel “homier,” in Shirley’s words. She stared at the ceiling, tracing the blades of the ceiling fan with her eyes, wishing she could do it all again or never do it at all. She remembered, then, that she told Lindsey she would come to her house after dropping Shirley at the airport. But she was content now to think she may never move her body again. She pulled her phone from her pocket and typed out, “Long day, not feeling it. Not going to make it tonight,” before pressing send and tossing her phone like a frisbee across the room. Her watch vibrated a few times indicating that she was receiving incoming text messages, so she took it off and flung it far away from herself, as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to my beta reader who somehow finds a lot of joy in helping me work through my flaws and is never responsible for any of the mistakes I make by defying her suggestions (which, I do sometimes. I'm stubborn). 
> 
> tumblr: ijustcrushalot (don't leave out the "I" that's not me).


	2. Misconceived Hedonism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Discussion of suicide

One thing that nobody ever told Tobin about breakups is that you can forget they ever happened when you're sleeping. When you’re asleep, your brain perceives what it expects; it operates by routine. In the weeks following the breakup, Tobin found herself regularly waking up to the feeling of the Shirley pressed behind her. She would sometimes automatically lean back into the sensation before realizing it was merely blankets. It was like her whole body had developed a phantom touch. More than once she’d also slipped softly out of bed early in the morning to go to the restroom, being careful not to make a sound. On her way back to the bed she’d realize that she was keeping the room silent and dark for nobody. The behavior was just so ingrained that she couldn’t shake it in the fog of sleep.

And so, nearly every morning, Tobin lost Shirley again. Every morning she woke up slowly and rolled to her right shoulder to find an empty pillow next to her. She’d tried sleeping on the other side and taking up the whole bed, but one way or another she always awoke alone, and back on the left side.

* * *

Three weeks after Shirley left, winter started to sink in around Tobin. Tobin started to have to bundle up when she left the townhouse. She rarely left, though.

One of her divorced friends told her just after Shirley left to, “Just be hedonistic. Cry if you need to cry. Eat ice cream, order takeout, watch a sappy movie, call in sick to work. Do whatever you can to get yourself by and make yourself feel okay.”

Tobin was perhaps taking the advice a bit too much to heart. She’d been living on takeout food and had worn through all of her clean clothes—not that she really ever changed out of sweatpants anymore. She’d turned down invitations to go out, and had found so many excuses not to have people over. Her days were occupied with doing just enough work to get by and laying on her couch until Netflix asked her “are you still watching” for at least the third time.

Each morning utter emptiness would form in the pit of her stomach and by nightfall, it would consume her.

* * *

Tobin finally let Lindsey visit one Saturday, maybe five or six weeks after Shirley left. Honestly, Tobin had no idea how long it had been. _A week? Six months? Who knew._ Tobin didn’t have much to say, but Lindsey was content just being next to her, observing her friend who’d gone missing.

As they sat watching Netflix, Tobin spoke into the darkness. “You know I tried to kill myself when I was 13?”

Lindsey grabbed the remote, paused the TV and turned on the nearest lamp. She turned to look into Tobin’s eyes.

“You, you did?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

“Yeah. I took a bunch of Adderall.”

“Really? Why Adderall?”

“Well, a shrink had just prescribed it to me. They thought a lack of focus was making my life miserable and why I started failing school.”

“Oh?” Lindsey nodded for Tobin to go on.

“Yeah, so I had a shit load of them, and just took them all at once. It was actually Ash Wednesday—the Wednesday before Lent starts. I laid down in my room and expected something to happen, but I just felt like I was super focused.”

“You were okay?”

“I was for a little while. I actually even went with my family to church. Then, in the middle of the sermon I swear I heard the voice of god. At first, I thought it was a miracle, but then I was doubling over and unable to control my body. I just sort of blacked out. Luckily, actually, my brother had refused to go to church with us. He was snooping around my room and found the empty pill bottle. He biked up to the church and came crashing in just in time to tell them about the pills.” Tobin paused, seeming to reconsider the incident. “Huh, I guess that actually was a miracle.”

“Wow, T.”

Tobin shrugged. “They took me to the hospital, pumped my stomach and put me on a suicide watch. They actually kept me in there for a week because I was honest every time they asked if I wanted to kill myself.”

Lindsey looked at her cautiously, “Tobes, do you want to kill yourself right now?”

“No.” Tobin said, confidently. “But sometimes, I really wish I did back then." She paused with a heavy sigh. "You know, when I was selfish enough? But now, I can see how much it would wreck the people I love. I may not be a lot, but I’m something to them.” She rolled her eyes with another deep breath. “Yeah, I guess society is kind of stuck with me.”

Lindsey pulled Tobin in for a hug, silent tears falling down her cheek and into Tobin’s hair, “Tobin, please don’t kill yourself? Okay? I need you here. I’m not stuck with you. I want you here.”

Tobin patted Lindsey’s back “Don’t worry, kid, I’m sticking around. I guess I just haven’t felt quite this dark since back then.”

“Well, what did you do back then?”

“You mean besides taking the pills?”, she grinned.

Lindsey shot back a disapproving look. “You know what I mean, T, What did you do to get better?”

Tobin shrugged and thought hard about the question. “A lot of therapy, I guess, and some antidepressants.”

“Well, would you think about doing that again? Therapy? Or Medication?”

Tobin held her breath for a minute before relenting, “I guess.”

“Well, good, because you need to do something.” She took Tobin by the shoulders and stared into her eyes, “I want you to be around forever and I want you to be glad you're around.” With the first laugh she’d mustered all night, Lindsey added, “Also, you smell.” She playfully fanned her nose. “And this place is kind of a mess.”

Tobin knew Lindsey was right. Her current state was not sustainable. She allowed a small smile to creep over her face as she pulled Lindsey in for a hug. 

“I’m gonna stay here tonight, okay?” Lindsey interrupted her thoughts.

“Yeah, okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks, as always, to my beta (notsocoldhearted on tumblr) 
> 
> ijustcrushalot on tumblr (don't forget the 'I')


	3. Group

Tobin bundled herself up in a jacket, coat, scarf, and beanie before pulling on her snow boots and heading out to her car. She scraped the snow and ice off of all of the windows before climbing inside, trying to shake the cold that was permeating her bones.

It'd been over three months since Shirley left and every day felt imperceptibly better than the last. Tobin was taking antidepressant medication and had started marking time by counting passes through the entirety of her weekly pill box. As the count rose, Tobin found herself having fewer days where she felt completely consumed by hopelessness.

Occasionally, she would realize that she had forgotten something about Shirley, and that felt good. What was her favorite flower? Where was that constellation of moles Tobin used to trace? She hadn't the faintest idea. Still, she longed for the day when she might forget the girl’s birthday or their anniversary.

It still didn’t quite make sense to Tobin, how strong and violent her initial emotional reaction had been. The two should have called it quits long before they did. They'd even tried an “open relationship,” despite knowing that they were both monogamous. By the end, they didn’t make each other happy anymore, not even a little. They just existed passably in each other’s space and ignored how lonely they felt together. Still, when they finally decided to break everything off and Shirley started the process of moving, everything suddenly shifted. It was like Tobin finally understood that they’d set fire to the future they once had with one another: the wedding, the kids, the overpriced house in the suburbs. It felt more like failure than Tobin was comfortable admitting.

And now Tobin felt like she would never be in a committed relationship again. The thought of ever starting that long journey felt endlessly tiring. Sure, there were girls out there that caught Tobin’s eye, and she definitely did not want to be celibate, but GOD building a relationship from the ground up seemed excruciating. Pleasantries and talking about work on mundane dates? Hard pass. Meeting a girl’s family and seeing clearly in their face how much they hoped “Tobin” was a boy’s name? No, thanks. For now, Tobin resolved to just be alone for a long time. Maybe forever. That seemed less painful and exhausting than trying anything again.

On the bright side, a sub-letter named Emily had recently moved into the townhouse. Emily was was a bit untidy but she helped pay the bills that Tobin couldn’t afford on her own and Tobin felt a bit less alone at home.

* * *

_Tobin had been in therapy for six weeks when her therapist, Dawn, suggested that it might be time to “Try a different approach to therapy.”_

_“Are you firing me as a client?” Tobin asked, “I’m still not really in great shape, doc. I kind of feel like I want to keep seeing you.”_

_“I’m not firing you, Tobin, but I think you might really benefit from adding group therapy on top of our regular sessions.”_

_“Group therapy? Like sit in a circle and talk about my feelings?”_

_“Well, sort of. It’s a bit more structured than that and the evidence suggests that it can really help with people who experience grief-related depression.”_

_Tobin guffawed. “So, you’re saying that you want me to go sit around with people who, like, lost their kid or something, and complain about how I’m uncontrollably sad after my ex girlfriend—whom I didn’t even love anymore—moved away?”_

_Dawn smiled at her gently, “Not exactly, the group will be comprised of other people in situations like yours—people going through divorce, or estrangement from family—as well as some who are just trying to learn to manage depression generally.”_

_Tobin sighed. She wasn’t sure about group therapy, but she did respect Dawn and knew that Dawn respected her. So, she agreed._

* * *

That’s how Tobin found herself pulling into the parking lot of the community center during a snowstorm. She cursed Dawn as she pulled on her hood and prepared to venture back out into the freezing temperatures.

Inside, she followed a sign to a table lined with blank sticker name badges where a blonde woman greeted her with a smile. “Hi, are you here for group? Can I have your name please?”

“Uh, it’s Tobin Heath.”

The woman thumbed through a stack of folders and pulled out a green one with Tobin’s name affixed to the tab. “Great, Tobin, it looks like we already have your insurance and paperwork lined up. You can just put your name on a nametag. Here,” she says extending a sharpie to Tobin. Tobin printed her name in capital letters, stuck it on her chest and looked hesitantly back at the woman.

“Um, I’m new.”

“I know, Tobin. There are a few of you starting today, but you’ll get to know my face and I’ll get to know yours. My name is Julie, or Dr. Ertz, whichever you prefer. I’ll be running the group. Don’t worry. For now, you’re about,” she looked down at her watch, “five minutes early. You can make your way in and pull up a chair to the circle. There is coffee and tea on the left if you want to warm up. It’s a bit chilly out there isn’t it?”

Tobin forced a smile and made eye contact once more. “It is. Thanks.”

Tobin pivoted and made her way inside a modestly sized room with chairs along the edges. She felt entirely uncomfortable, like she was dressed up as herself for halloween. Inside the room was no clear place to go and she didn't know any of the other people milling about the room. She decided to make coffee to pass the time, hoping that nobody would notice the discomfort she was carrying in her chest. She took her time making her coffee, pouring the sugar like she was counting every grain and stirring it excessively before tasting it and stirring it again. It gave her something to do with her hands.

She really hated being early. People always thought she arrived chronically late to because she was lazy or because she was just super “chill” and doesn't notice the time, but really, she hated arriving early because she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

After an eternity of making coffee, Tobin saw people pulling chairs into a circle in the middle of the room. She pulled a chair up with them and stared at nothing in particular on her phone, trying to calm her nerves and prevent her muscles from tensing. She felt like each second was taking five minutes.

She glanced up briefly and looked around the room, wondering whether anyone else was feeling as weird about this as she was, but everyone else looked calm. She considered going to the restroom and coming back in after she was sure the session would have started. Before she could enact her plan, though, Julie walked in and cleared her throat. Tobin slid her phone into her pocket and sat back rubbing her thumb over the patterned groves in her coffee cup. 

She concentrated on the cup as the words of people introducing themselves started to blend together in her mind. It was only when she heard the guy next to her start to speak that she realized she had no idea what question everyone was responding to. She listened carefully to him hoping that it might provide some insight into the task.

“Hi, I’m Harrison. I’ve been in this group for six weeks, I’ve been diagnosed with major depression, and to me depression is like a weight that sits on your chest and makes every movement more cumbersome than it needs to be.”

Julie offered Harrison a “Thank you,” before turning to Tobin.

Her mouth went dry and she took a sip of her coffee trying to calm her nerves before speaking. “Um, uh, sorry.” She coughed out, surprised by how warm the coffee remained. “So, I’m Tobin, this is my first week, I’m depressed, and to me it feels like the Grinch Stole Christmas every day.”

The group chuckled in unison. “Great simile, Tobin.” The facilitator said. “I’d love to return to that in a bit.” Tobin smiled, the tension in her muscles easing as the guy next to her started to speak.

“I’m Jude, third week, Type 2 Bipolar, and to me, depression is having a floor lamp with three lights but only one of them works.”

Everyone nodded along. Tobin found herself wishing she had paid attention sooner.

As the person beside Jude started to speak, Tobin turned to look at her and was immediately captivated by the stranger. The girl looked a bit unusual for the small northeastern town. She was put together in a way that the others weren’t, her clothes laying perfectly on her frame. She looked like she belonged in a city making big decisions, not at this community center in the middle of nowhere talking to people like Tobin. 

“I’m Christen, this is my third week. I’ve been clinically diagnosed with comorbid depression and anxiety. To me, depression feels like we’re all out in the ocean and everyone else seems to be able to just stand up or float effortlessly. But I will always have to swim. Sometimes I have to swim with everything I have just to keep myself from drowning. And sometimes my muscles just get tired of treading water and I wonder whether drowning would really be any worse than the effort it takes to fight."

Tobin stared slack jawed at the girl. It was like she had just put into words everything Tobin had been feeling for months: Tobin had to swim to keep from drowning, and all of this therapy and medication had been Tobin trying to convince herself to want to swim. Christen looked up from the floor and slowly around the circle, where everyone was nodding their head in confirmation. Perhaps she rested her eyes a bit longer on Tobin’s, but Tobin would never admit to hoping that was true.

By the time the group session was over, Tobin had finished two cups of coffee and a black tea. The caffeine had made her physically jittery. Still, she felt a lot more at ease with the idea of group than she had been when she walked in the door. She really felt like she could benefit from interacting with other people who were dealing with issues similar to hers. 

“Tobin!” Julie called just as she was peeling off her identification and throwing it into the trash.

“Hi, um…” Tobin started to try to form a name with her mouth but she froze nothing came out.

“Julie or Dr. Ertz, whichever you prefer.”

“Yeah I… sorry. What’s up Dr. Ju—Ertz?”

“I just wanted to welcome you, again, to group. I talked to Dawn and she says that you’ve been making some amazing strides in therapy, and she’s hoping you will grow a lot here. I’m glad you’re here. Your contributions today were wonderful. I hope we see you next time.”

“Thanks, Dr. Ertz.” Tobin replied genuinely, “I know I should be optimistic about this whole thing, but my brain feels a little stuck at the moment. So, sorry if I came across negatively.”

“Tobin, I work with people with depression every day. People coming across negatively is literally in the job description.”

Tobin sighed to herself and nodded, pausing to see whether Julie had anything else to add. When the woman just smiled back at her, Tobin finished with a “Yeah, I'll see you next week,” and moved to the coat rack to retrieve her outerwear. As she walked out of the room into the cold foyer, she realized just how much she really needed to pee. Although it was a relatively short drive home, she figured it was easier to go before trying to make her way into the cold.

By the time she left the restroom, the community center was mostly cleared out; meeting members were no longer huddled in the entryway chatting. Tobin was actually relieved that she would not have to engage in small talk. Just as she was approaching the exit, the girl who had caught Tobin’s attention during group burst in shaking the snow off and yelling into a phone.

“It won’t start and it’s freezing out here. Do you expect me to wait two hours in a snow storm? You said 20 minutes at most when I bought this policy.”

Tobin froze, letting the frazzled woman occupy the entire space in front of the door. When she got off the phone she looked up into Tobin’s eyes, seeming to recognize that she was impeding a stranger’s pathway.

“Wow, your eyes are gorgeous,” Tobin blurted without any hint of self-restraint. The girl looked at her with a cocky grin and raised an eyebrow in challenge. Tobin realized what she’d just done and physically shook her head at herself, “Oh god, sorry. That was. Sorry. Christen, right? I’m Tobin.” She extended her hand.

The woman looked at her blushing slightly now, though the grin remained. “Yes, nice to meet you, Tobin. Welcome to group.”

Tobin couldn’t help but pry. “Hey, so um what’s going on with your car?”

Christen sighed. “I don't know, it won’t start.”

“Do you want me to take a look?” Tobin asked, fully aware that she had very limited knowledge of cars—most of which came from YouTube videos. She’d even once attempted to change her own oil and ended up stripping the lining of the cap to the oil pan and had to pay $500 to get it fixed.

“You think you could help?”

Tobin shrugged—an honest response.

“Okay, come look.”

They made their way to the car and Christen demonstrated for Tobin that it wasn’t cranking. The car moaned and whined as she turned the key.

“Maybe it’s the battery?” Tobin suggested. “I could jump you.”

Tobin pretended to ignore the way Christen’s eyes went a little wide at the suggestion and Christen pretended to ignore the way Tobin’s cheeks flushed in response.

“Um, okay.”

Tobin pulled her car around so that it was facing Christen’s and retrieved the jumper cables out of her trunk. Once they had the cars hooked together and Tobin’s running, they found themselves standing in the cold, saying nothing, each staring at the other’s car. Finally, Tobin told Christen to go try to crank her car. Christen did, but the same grinding sound came out again and the engine didn't turn over.

“Maybe it just needs some more time?” Tobin suggested, “It is pretty cold.”

Christen nodded her body shaking against the wind.

“Here, come sit in my car while we wait.” Tobin said. Christen grinned and shuffled her feet quickly toward Tobin’s passenger door.

They sat in silence for about 30 seconds listening to radio commercials playing before Tobin leaned forward, turning off the radio and attempting to break the tension. “So, Christen. Um, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m an attorney, specializing in tort law with a part time appointment in the law school at the university.” She said, pointing in the direction of the nearby college campus.

“Wow,” Tobin responded, genuinely impressed.

“You?”

“I’m a data analyst for a medium-sized tech firm.”

“Oh, um, I see,” Christen said without confidence. “I’m sorry but I guess I don’t really know what that means?”

“Well, mainly it involves me taking the data that we gather as a firm—like anything from click counts to user experience ratings—and making sense of them for the decision-makers in company.”

“Wow, so, like, a techy translator? That sounds really cool.”

“It is! It was my dream after I took my first marketing analytics class in college!” Tobin replied excitedly, before adding with a frown, “It’s honestly a bit lonely, though. I work remotely 3 weeks of the month and set my own hours. So, it's a lot of sitting around in pajamas but making sure I have a button-up handy just in case I need to jump on a video call.”

“Ha!” Christen laughed aloud and teased, “Not having anywhere to be? That sounds GREAT for depression.”

“Pretty much a perfect setup! Days without seeing another human, nobody checking on your hours, no person to talk through your thoughts with.” Tobin smiled back at the girl. “It’s the dream.”

They stared at each other for a moment, taking each other in. The snow outside had dampened the sound of the world, and for a moment they felt truly and totally alone. Tobin was the first to crumple under the intensity. She coughed and looked away and suggested Christen to go and try to start her car again.

As Christen climbed out into the snow, Tobin smacked her left hand on the steering wheel and gripped it, pulling her right hand to her forehead whispering “real smooth, bro” to herself. She heard the grinding of Christen’s engine and it became clear the girl's car was not going to start. Tobin pulled out her phone to quickly google what the problem might be. She found several articles suggesting that it was probably the starter, so she slid out of her car and trudged over to Christen’s. As she approached, she heard Christen telling someone on the phone saying “I tried jumping it.”

Tobin rapped on her window and Christen opened the door. Tobin whispered, “I think it might be the starter.”

Christen turned back toward the phone with a serious look on her face, “My friend thinks it’s the starter.

…

What?

…

Four hours?

…

But you can really do it out here? Okay.”

Christen hung up the phone and looked down at her lap sighing before turning to Tobin.

“Tobin, thanks for everything. Sorry to take time out of your Saturday. I’m just going to find a coffee shop I can walk to and wait there until they come to fix this.”

“Christen, I’m not going to leave you out in the cold to fend for yourself. I’ll take you wherever you’d like to go.”

Christen shot Tobin a look of challenge similar to the one she’d given her back in the community center. Tobin felt like the air between them was getting heavier. Still, she stared back at Christen, trying to seem unfazed.

“Well, then will you let me get you a cup of coffee?”

“Make it hot chocolate and you have a deal. I definitely don’t need any more caffeine.”

Christen joked back softly, “Yeah, I noticed you were pretty thirsty in there.”

Tobin felt the blood rushing to her cheeks, so she turned quickly headed toward her own car, calling back for Christen to help her disconnect the jumper cables.

Tobin drove them to a nearby diner. When she parked, she considered running around to open Christen’s car door, but thought better of the gesture. When they got inside, Tobin waved to the man behind the counter. “Hey Bill!”

“Hey, Tobin! It’s been a while. How’s Shirley?”

Tobin’s heart started to race as she considered how much (or little) she should say. She finally settled on: “Ah, Bill, she lives in a different country now, but that’s a much longer story for another time.” Tobin widened her eyes and gestured with her head toward Christen, hoping desperately he’d take the hint.

“Oh, sorry, Tobin! You take any table you like, I’ll bring you some menus.”

“So, do you come here often?” Christen joked as they made their way to a booth at the front of the diner.

“Apparently not in at least, like, 5 months,” Tobin rolled her eyes.

Christen grinned back at her. “I know that feeling. When my ex and I broke up everyone asked after her for ages.”

The word _her_ pinged around in Tobin’s mind. It occupied the corners. It motivated Tobin to let her eyes wander and take Christen in fully.

“See something you like there, Champ?” Christen asked boldly before biting her lip with a look that convinced Tobin she’d defintiely been caught.

“Yes.” Tobin replied confidently.

Christen stared at her with an intense gaze, as if she was trying to figure out the angle Tobin might be playing. She shrugged it off though, smiling slightly at Tobin who found herself with a sudden desire to wet her own lips.

“Well, as a policy I don’t date people from group. So…” Christen raised her eyebrows as if to ask Tobin for an explination.

“Well, as a policy, I’m not looking to date anyone right now,” Tobin retorted with a shit-eating grin.

Bill arrived to the table with two menus and two glasses of water and set them down in front of Tobin and Christen. It gave them just enough to do with their hands and their eyes, so that whatever was hanging in the air between them moments before evaporated, allowing them to return to a friendlier dynamic.

They talked about so many things: their childhoods, their jobs, the things they wanted out of life. In no time at all Christen’s phone was ringing and they were suiting back up to go into the cold. Even though they had not ordered anything, Tobin threw $10 on the table as they left and shouted goodbye to Bill on her way out the door.

When they arrived back at the community center, Christen got out of Tobin’s car and gave her key to the mechanic who had just shown up. She made her way back into the warmth of Tobin’s car while she waited for the man to finish.

“He said it would be about 10 to 15 minutes. I already signed the paperwork and everything.”

“Lucky me. I get a few more minutes with you” Tobin said with a smirk. She really did enjoy Christen’s company. It felt easy and like she was starting something fresh, without any hit of Shirley tainting their dynamic. Christen didn't see her as someone going through a breakup, she just saw Tobin as her new friend from group. 

Unfortunately for Tobin, the mechanic was much more efficient than he’d predicted. Within 5 minutes he cranked the car and gave a thumbs up and waving to Christen as he made his way back to his truck. Christen slowly opened the passenger door. She started to push out of the car and sighed out, “Well, Tobin…” Before she could stop herself, Tobin reached out and caught Christen by the wrist. “Chris” she breathed out, desperation in her gaze, "can you just..." She pulled Christen’s arm toward her lightly with just enough force to communicate where she’d like the girl, but not enough to require anything of Christen.

Christen let her body weight fall back into the car as she allowed Tobin to guide her nearer. Tobin pulled her in slowly for a firm kiss which Christen quickly deepened. She bit down lightly on Tobin’s bottom lip as she pulled away and rested her head against the passenger seat.

Tobin looked at her with fiery intensity. “Sorry, I just, I couldn’t let you go without doing that.”

“Tobin?” Christen was staring back with an equally intense gaze.

“Yeah?”

Christen closed her eyes and leaned her head back against Tobin's passenger seat headrest with a deep breath. She took the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth looking unsure about whether to continue speaking. The pause started to make Tobin nervous that she'd done something wrong, but just as she was about to start apologizing, Christen finally asked in a breathy voice, “Do you live near here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, to my beta reader (notsocoldhearted on tumblr), especially because this chapter was longer than the other two combined.
> 
> I’d love to hear your thoughts here or on Tumblr ijustcrushalot


	4. But friends don’t know the way you taste

“Fuck, yes, Tobes, fuck.” Christen sighed breathlessly as she worked herself against Tobin.

It was nearly 10pm and they were parked on the roof of the garage outside of the building that housed Christen’s law firm. Their bodies were sweaty and pressed together in the back seat of Tobin’s car as the heat they were generating fogged up the windows. Christen had her pencil skirt hiked up and her shirt unbuttoned. Tobin’s pants were around her ankles and her fingers were inside Christen who was grinding down on her as Tobin sucked on her breasts.

Between heavy breaths Tobin panted, “Yes, Chris. God, you feel so fucking good. I love how wet you are for me baby. You gonna come for me? Let that tight little pussy get the relief it needs?” She swiped her thumb over Christen’s clit a few times and the lawyer came absolutely undone, arching into Tobin with a filthy moan.

They rested there, chests heaving, Christen straddling Tobin’s lap, her ass firmly on Tobin’s legs. She sighed, inhaling Tobin’s scent and pressing kisses up her neck and jaw.

“Fuck, Tobes. I needed really that.”

“Me too.” Tobin replied, resting her lips softly on Christen’s collarbone.

The two sat in silence panting for a few moments, breathing each other in, before Christen rolled herself off of Tobin and started to pull her clothes back on. Tobin stared at Christen blissfully as she dressed. “You’re super hot, Chris,” she mumbled as she moved to pull her pants back on, "that was incredible."

Tobin made her way out the passenger side door of the backseat and around the back of the car. She opened the driver-side door of the backseat and Christen climbed out stuffing her feet back into her heels, hopping, slightly off balance and using Tobin’s shoulder to catch herself from falling.

“Let me see you.” Tobin said, pulling a few pieces of lint of Christen’s shoulder and adjusting how her shirt was tucked into her skirt. She smoothed Christens hair. “There, good as new, like we just had dinner or something,” she added winking. Christen smirked at Tobin, “That was some dinner, huh?”

Tobin drove them back down two stories and dropped Christen at the elevator that would take her back to the office. She waved as Christen got in the elevator, a cocky smile still on her face. Christen, in turn, sucked her right index and middle fingers—the same two that had worked Tobin up only minutes ago—into her mouth sensually, causing Tobin’s mouth to go dry and her expression to become pained. Christen offered her own cocky grin back and waved with the fingers of her left hand.

As Tobin watched the doors close, she shook her head and chuckled to herself. Christen knew EXACTLY what she was doing with Tobin.

* * *

Tobin pulled up to her townhouse to find Lindsey’s car parked in the visitor spot. She panicked, suddenly remembering that they’d made plans to watch a movie at 10. She sprinted inside, feeling guilty.

“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in” Lindsey drawled, putting extra emphasis on the word “cat,” and raising an eyebrow.

“Me-owww,” Emily added, gesturing like a cat scratching with her hand.

“Ugh, I’m sorry Linds. How long have you been here?”

“It’s fine, Tobin, Em has agreed to be my new best friend since you’ve recently seemed otherwise disposed.” Tobin groaned and made her way over to Lindsey to pull her in for a hug.

“So, when are you going to bae her up?” Emily teased.

Tobin shook her head, “never, we’re just friends” feeling the tickle of self-deception in her throat.

“Tobin, you and I have been friends for years and never once have I sent you a nude. And, may I add, I never will,” Lindsey joked, “unlike your lawyer _friend_.”

“Fine, fine. Yeah, we're friends with benefits,” she defended, as the other two looked at her with knowing smiles, “really great benefits.” Rolling her eyes she added, “Are you asking for my nudes, L?”

“I’d rather have the hot lawyer’s, if you’re in a sharing mood,” Lindsey quipped.

The truth was that friends with benefits was all she and Christen had agreed to. After that first group meeting, the two couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

After the second time, they could both tell that their one-on-one “therapy sessions” were nowhere near over. So, they decided to lay down some ground rules. They scribbled them on the back of one of Tobin’s utility bills lying naked in each other’s arms:

* * *

_Tobin and Christen’s FWB rules:_

_Rule #1: Do not catch feelings. Neither of us are secure enough in our mental health to risk it._

_Rule #2: Do not tell anyone in group. None of them are secure enough in their mental health to learn this._

_Rule #3: Anyone can call it quits at any time for any reason without needing to justify it to the other person._

_Rule #4: You can ask for anything you want, whenever you want, and the other person will consider the request in good faith._

_Rule #5: We can’t fix each other. We can only swim beside each other and help remind the other that they probably want to keep swimming._

* * *

Rule #4 had, incidentally, resulted in some very fun adventures: The secluded hill overlooking town, the bathroom of a sports bar during a playoff game, Christen tying Tobin's hands to her bedposts, a threesome with a barista from their favorite coffee shop.

The two had been seeing each other (in the biblical sense) at least twice a week for almost four months since that first group session—much more frequently when Christen had a light caseload. Tobin couldn’t remember a time in her life she’d ever been so consistently and completely turned on by someone else. But, it was more than that, too.

Christen made Tobin smile. She made her forget about who she’d been before. Tobin made Christen laugh so hard her cheeks would get sore and she'd told Tobin she'd found herself taking things less seriously. 

They’d both rotated out of group sessions and were checking in with their personal therapists on a bi-monthly basis. They’d decided to tell their therapists about their… _situation_ , and agreed that they could tell friends.

Christen was so perfect for Tobin that Tobin sometimes found herself thanking her therapist for sending her to group therapy and had honestly considered writing a letter to BMW to thank them for placing a faulty starter in that particular car. Tobin tried her best, but she knew that she was edging dangerously into the territory of breaking Rule #1 ("Do not catch feelings _"_ ). Tobin was feeling things she'd never felt with Shirley; she’d finally found someone who really understood her who also made her heart rate spike and caused feelings to fall from her chest to her core.

Still, she told herself over and over that neither of them wanted or were ready for a relationship. She didn't want to miss out on any moment with Christen by trying to make the arrangement more official. 

* * *

Tobin was out at brunch one Sunday morning with Lindsey and Emily when she saw her phone light up with Christen’s name. She’d snuck it under the table, hoping that it was something dirty. They’d been doing this thing to each other where they sent messages to make the other person squirm and blush in public. What they lacked in time physically together they often made up for digitally. Tobin smiled as she opened the message, knowing Christen knew that she was at brunch with her friends.

But the text wasn’t dirty. It was just 8 characters:

Rule #3.


	5. Rule #3

Tobin stared at the text for a long time. Long enough that Lindsey and Emily started snapping their fingers in front of her eyes, trying to get her attention. 

“Tobin, are you okay? What’s going on?” Lindsey pressed her. 

“I… she… she invoked Rule #3.”

“What are you talking about?” Emily prodded, concern in her voice.

“It’s… it’s stupid, we made these rules months ago, like after the second time we slept together. One of them was that either of us could stop at any time without having to justify it. She just… she just texted me that rule number.”

Tobin’s eyes started to fill with tears and the sound of Emily and Lindsey’s follow-up questions became muffled in her mind. “Not again. I… Fuck... Not again.” She stood up from the table and abruptly made her way out of the restaurant, ignoring Emily and Lindsey’s calls for her. She knew that they would follow her so she took off running, wanting desperately to be alone. All she wanted in that moment was to put physical distance between herself and whatever the fuck had just happened. 

She breathed in and out raggedly, counting her paces, trying to focus on the rhythm of her heart. She felt like she was spinning, like her world had rotated off its axis and was now floating out of orbit. She cursed aloud between labored breaths, “You. Fucking. Idiot. Tobin,” running as hard and as fast as her slim-fit jeans would allow. 

As hard as she tried, she couldn’t seem to understand why the text from Christen felt so immense. 

Christen had initially been a way to de-stress; a lovely, positive, and easy part of her life. As time went on she’d tried her best not to break Rule #1 and catch feelings, and she knew that she’d crossed the line a bit, but the way she was reacting right now made her question just how far over the line she was. She definitely hadn’t expected herself to react so violently to Christen ending things. Budding romantic feelings? She knew she had those. But ‘flee-from-your-friends-and-run-until-it-hurts-because-this-is-devistating’ feelings? Those were unexpected. 

_“Nothing makes sense,”_ Tobin thought.

She’d had an awful relationship with Shirley, but when it ended it had devastated her so much more than she’d expected. Logically, it had been the right call, but emotionally it still felt like an impossible choice. Now, she’d barely had a real relationship with Christen, but once again she felt completely devastated. It as like everything was mixing together in her head: the positives, the negatives, the in-betweens of love and like and sex. 

Her mind traveled back to the end of her relationship with Shirley. She felt dread sink into her stomach as she remembered standing in her living room, awash in shouts and accusations, yelling every terrible and hurtful thing she could think of just to prove a point. She felt her chest tighten as she thought about hiding in her room, trying her hardest to ignore the sounds of Shirley on the phone negotiating prices with moving companies. And then she felt hopelessness envelope her brain as she remembered the scene when she walked back inside her house the day Shirley moved out to find the place missing half of its parts. The emotion of it all overwhelmed her. 

She bit down on the inside of her cheek trying to keep herself from sobbing. What if she was never going to be okay again? What if Shirley was it—her first and last chance at anything good and loving and positive? Christen clearly didn’t want her for anything more than sex. She hadn’t even bothered to explain why she needed to end it. What if she was ruined forever? 

Tobin found herself flipping through an index of options in her mind. She could run away; leave town and never come back. That way, she would never have to see another thing that made her think of Christen or Shirley again. She could get a new job somewhere else, doing something else. She would rent a room in a boarding house and get a cat and be alone forever. Or maybe it was time to just call it all off. Maybe it was time to stop swimming and just see how badly the current wanted to take her. 

Spiraling. She was spiraling. 

The truth hit her after another block or so and settled on her shoulders like a weighted vest, causing Tobin to slow her pace. Tears completely overwhelmed her vision as she realized: this wasn’t really about Christen, it was about Shirley. Christen’s text had shone a light on a wound that Tobin had thought was almost healed, but clearly was even deeper than she’d realized. 

She suddenly understood why it had felt so right when she and Christen wrote the rules. She needed those rules. She really wasn’t ready to catch feelings when she hadn’t allowed herself to heal. Until this moment she’d been so effective at numbing the sensations coming from her wounds instead of tending to them. 

Tobin heard a car approach from behind and slow beside her.

“Tobin!” Lindsey yelled from the passenger window, “Tobin, get in the damn car.”

Tobin started to panic and quickened her pace. Emily sped the car up and pulled into a driveway, blocking Tobin’s path. Lindsey hopped out and grabbed Tobin as she tried to run around the car, pulling her in by her waist and wrapping her in for a tight hug. Tobin fought at first, but Lindsey just held her tighter. Eventually, Tobin let her body relax and she started to sob into Lindsey’s shoulder.

“I’m so sorry Linds,” Tobin pleaded, “I just can’t stop myself. I just feel so… overwhelmed.”

Tobin shook in Lindsey’s embrace, her body rattling. 

Lindsey shushed her, rubbing her back, “Shh. T, it’s okay, it’s okay. Let’s get you home.”

Lindsey guided her into Emily’s back seat and pulled her gently until Tobin was curled up with her head on Lindsey’s lap. Tobin’s thoughts slowed and quieted as Emily drove, feeling comforted and safe with the other two girls even though her heart felt like it was being slowly crushed. As soon as they’d parked, Tobin rose without a word and made her way inside alone. She collapsed belly-first onto her bed as she thought back on the last few months. 

An hour later she heard faint rap at the door. 

“Come in,” she spoke gruffly, her mouth half covered by her comforter. 

“Tobes, you didn’t eat anything at brunch. Em got our food to go and went back to pick it up so I’ve got your chicken biscuit now. Do you think you could come eat something?” Lindsey asked. 

Tobin thought for a moment. She really didn’t want to move but she knew she had to eat. Her body felt exhausted, but she knew she needed to fight off the darkness closing in on her mind. Not eating would only make that feat more difficult. “Fine,” she said softly. 

Lindsey nodded and closed Tobin’s door gently. 

Tobin rolled over and stared at the ceiling for a moment. She watched the fan as it turned, tracing the blades with her eyes. She sighed deeply as she considered her emotions: their origins, their journeys, how she’d ended up sprinting down the street crying desperately over someone she’d known less than 5 months. 

Christen wasn’t Shirley. The relationship had been something completely different. It was clear now that her reaction had been outsized, and had more to do with her ability to cope and with her past than it had to do with Christen. 

Sure, over the past few months Tobin had become attached to Christen. Of course she had. The girl was sweet, kind, wonderful, and incredible in bed. They’d had so much fun together. But, they’d also set boundaries and followed them well. Christen was not Tobin’s whole world; she was a good friend. A sexy, smart, generous, friend who Tobin dreamed about a lot, but she was still a friend. And, below her tears and pain, at her very core, Tobin truly wanted the best for her friend, even if that didn’t mean she’d get to keep the benefits forever. 

She felt the pain in her chest as she admitted that she didn’t think she was enough for Christen. Christen was a brilliant lawyer and professor with a bright future ahead of her. Tobin was an emotionally labile recluse who still had a roommate, ate bagel bites for dinner at least once a week, and had only, like, two friends. Christen deserved better.

“ _Maybe she met someone_ ,” Tobin reasoned, “ _that’s probably why she called it off. Someone as perfect as Christen does not stay on the market this long_.”

As she stared at the fan, Tobin found that, unlike the last time she was in position, she didn’t want to stop time, nor did she wish to take back anything that had happened with Christen. Instead, she concluded that breaking Rule #1 was quite worth it. She was sad and hurt, yes, but it was like she could feel her nerve endings again, raw and exposed. She could feel the hurt in her chest, because she’d just lost a person and a relationship she really liked. But that was a normal reaction. It was a normal reaction that did not have to define her. She didn’t have to be sad Tobin; she could be Tobin who was going through something that was making her sad. 

Christen hadn’t saved her or pulled her out of darkness. Tobin had been doing the work to get out of the darkness herself, and she was in charge of whether she was going back in. Christen had simply helped to remind Tobin what it felt like to want to swim.

Tobin reached for her phone and pulled up her therapist’s online booking form. She scheduled an appointment for later in the week as she sighed, “Back to square one.” 

She made her way downstairs to join Lindsey and Emily at the table, giving a side hug to Emily and ruffling Lindsey’s hair on the way. “Thanks, guys. I’m sorry about the freak out, I really didn’t handle myself well. I was just so shocked and I didn’t know what to do so I just ran.”

“It’s totally fine, Tobin. We all have our moments.” Emily said, moving her hand in a shooing motion. She looked at Tobin with kind eyes before adding, “How are you doing?”

Tobin thought for a minute before responding, “I think, eventually, I’m going to be okay. I have some real shit to work out in the meantime, though.” 

Lindsey placed her hand on top of Tobin’s, “Well, T, we’re here no matter what. Alright?”

Tobin smiled. “Thanks, L. You both mean so much to me.” She gazed at other two girls with a loving expression before wryly trying to lighten the mood, “Sheesh, can we stop being so sappy and eat already? I just finished the run-from-my-feelings 5K and need some carbs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, there's still a chapter left!
> 
> Thanks, as always, to my beta, @notsocoldhearted on tumblr, as well as Heath17_KO5 on AO3 and @christenstobin on tumbr for additional feedback.


	6. Rule #1

**Rule # 1**

At 5:05 pm on Friday afternoon, Tobin parked her car in the parking structure downtown and climbed out into a perfect spring dusk. She inhaled the air deeply through her nose, taking in the scent of thaw and bloom and thinking to herself about just how perfect this time of year always felt. It had been three weeks and five days since Christen’s “Rule #3” text and things had been going better than expected—she’d gone back to weekly therapy sessions, had been doing all of her therapy homework, and even received a promotion at her job. She’d realized that many of the issues she thought stemmed from her breakup were not just Shirley-specific and would not disappear as Shirley dissipated from her memory. 

She smoothed over her shirt as she started to walk toward the Pink Salt Bar. Her phone buzzed with a text and she opened it to find a picture of a pitcher of beer with the words “Get. Here. NOW.” written under it. She chuckled and typed back “just parked, omw, Em.”

Lindsey and Emily had been amazing friends to her the past few weeks. Tobin had spent multiple evenings ranting at both about how she’d never find love again and they’d been perfectly patient with her. They challenged her gently and loved her even though she was sure that she was being incredibly unlovable. She’d promised to buy them a round of drinks at happy hour as a thank you, but she knew no amount of drinks could ever pay for the kindness they’d shown her. She felt so incredibly lucky to have them in her life.

It wasn’t like the past few weeks hadn’t been difficult at all. Losing Christen wasn’t easy. At first, Tobin had opened her text messages with Christen every few hours. She was especially likely to do so when she’d had a bit to drink, typing things like, “I know it’s against the rules to ask, but why rule 3?” and, “I miss you like hell” and, “Youer teh most beatuiful woman I’ve ever met come visstis me, rule 4.”

Once, she’d even thought that she saw the little dots pop up on her screen suggesting Christen was typing something in their text. The dots disappeared as quickly as they came and Tobin started to type, “What were you going to say?” but thought better of it. To this day she didn’t know whether the dots were just a mirage. Dots or not, each time she’d typed something she had managed not to press send. She was quite proud of her self-control. She was even more proud when she’d deleted the thread entirely from her phone. 

Tobin smiled widely as she stepped out of the sun and allowed her eyes to adjust to the slightly dimmer interior of the bar. The first thing she noticed was Lindsey and Emily waving to her from their table near the back of the room. The second thing she noticed was the sound of laughter coming from a group she’d need to walk past to get there. 

She stopped dead in her tracks, her heart rate increasing suddenly as her ears picked up a laugh that lingered slightly longer than the others. Her body recognized the laugh immediately, but her eyes still scanned the group to confirm the origin: Christen Press. 

Christen looked as beautiful as ever, her hair was down and curly, she was outfitted in a form-fitting suit that hugged all of the best parts of her body, blush and highlighter perfectly accentuated her cheek bones. Christen’s laughter seemed to pull memories from their resting place inside Tobin’s marrow to the surface of her skin. An uncontrollable gasp swept through her chest.

Tobin’s shoes squeaked against the polished concrete floor as she halted, causing Christen to look up at her. Christen’s laughter died in her throat as her eyes went wide and her face flushed. It felt like the entire restaurant went silent as everyone glanced between Christen and Tobin, unsure of what was going on. Still, Tobin’s eyes were fixed on Christen’s. 

_ Fuck. Tobin. Get it together _ .

Tobin took a deep breath and forced a smile. She decided she was going to play it as cool as she possibly could. 

_ Old friends: That’s what they were now _ . 

She shoved her hands into her pockets to stop their trembling. She swallowed hard as she decided that  _ old friends say hi to one another _ . 

“Hey, Chris! It’s been a while,” she said while approaching the table. Christen was starting to look a bit queasy. Tobin stopped short, avoiding any physical contact and keeping her hands firmly in her pockets. 

“Oh, hi, Tobin.” She squeaked out before turning to her co-workers. “Guys, this is Tobin. She was in my group therapy group. Tobin, this is Megan, Alex, and Ashlyn. They work in various capacities at the firm.”

“Nice to meet you.” Tobin said genuinely, shaking hands with each of them as she tried to repeat their names back to them. 

“Wait, THE Tobin?” Megan asked as she stood on her bar stool and leaned onto the table to extend her hand across the table toward Tobin. Tobin thought she saw Christen blush and glare meaningfully at Megan. “Yes, P. This is the only Tobin I know.”.

“If it helps, she’s the only Christen I know who spells her name that way.” Tobin offered, trying to cut the rising tension. The group chuckled and Megan shot Tobin a wink and squeezed her hand once more before letting it go.

As Tobin pulled her hand back to her pocket, she stole a glance at Christen and her face softened as she observed Christen’s clear discomfort: cheeks red, eyes searching. Tobin wasn’t the only one having a hard time playing it cool. 

The discomfort and uncertainty was a new dynamic for them; they’d always found it so easy to be around one another. Tobin smiled back at the group and pointed her thumb over her shoulder towards the back of the bar. “Okay, I am meeting a couple of friends here, so I’d better get to it. It was lovely to meet you all! Great to see you Chris. You all be well.” 

As she turned her back, she heard one of Christen’s co-workers say, “Damn Press, she really is hot.” Tobin grinned as she strode towards Lindsey and Emily. They gave her sly smiles as she walked up. 

“So, who was that, T?” Lindsey asked with a smirk. 

“Just Christen,” she said nonchalantly. 

Emily gasped and then slugged her in the arm. “JUST CHRISTEN?” she whisper-shouted. “Holy shit, Tobin! Holy shit! First, how are you not, like, upset right now? Second, she is WAY more beautiful than I realized. You really bagged that smoke show? No wonder you never brought her around, you were afraid I’d try to steal her!”

Tobin’s face turned beet-red, but she managed to roll her eyes at Emily. “Guys, she didn’t want to see me. I don’t want to talk about her right now, let’s talk about something else.”

“Fine, but I’m getting you drunk so you can tell me what fucking someone that beautiful feels like,” Emily relented.

Tobin smiled and shook her head as Lindsey dutifully changed the subject. “Don’t be gross, Em. Plus, don’t forget, even if she’s hot, we hate her. Anyway! Tobin, I was just telling Emily about that asshole at work who keeps leaving me passive aggressive notes…” Tobin tried to focus, but she kept finding Christen in the corner of her eye. 

By her third beer, Tobin’s glances in Christen’s direction were becoming rather obvious, and she’d been caught at least once by one of Christen’s co-workers. Lindsey eventually made her switch seats so that Tobin had her back to Christen. 

When Tobin eventually went to the bar to get them a second pitcher of beer, she noticed that the group was standing up and gathering their belongings to leave. She felt a pang in her chest as she waited for the bartender to fill the pitcher. She drummed her fingertips on the bar top and tried to decide whether she should go over. Just as she worked up the nerve, the bartender arrived back with the beer and took her credit card, asking her to wait for him to give her card back after opening a tab. As she was waiting, she glanced over her shoulder to see Christen and her co-workers making their way through the door. She’d missed her chance. To chase Christen out of the bar onto the street now would seem so desperate. It would embarrass Christen. Plus, it would definitely break her heart to have Christen turn her down in-person. 

Tobin moped back to the table with the beer. Lindsey and Emily were lost in a debate about some obscure sports topic and they didn’t seem to notice Tobin’s long face. She poured them each a pint and raised her glass interrupting them just as they began to raise their voices, “To new beginnings.”

“To new beginnings,” they both turned and echoed, “and to Tobin paying for more drinks with her raise!” Emily added as their glasses clinked together . 

Tobin’s phone buzzed on the table as she was setting her beer down. Her eyes went wide as she saw the sender: Christen Press. She scrambled to open the text. 

“Rule #4? Restroom at Pink Salt Bar?”

She turned around and scanned the room. Finally, she saw Christen sitting about halfway down the bar a highball glass in hand, stirring its contents, and staring directly at Tobin. Tobin felt a chill run through her entire body as she caught Christen’s hungry gaze. Tobin held up a single finger toward Christen, asking her wordlessly to wait, before turning back to Lindsey and Emily, hunching over her beer. 

“She wants me.”

Lindsey gave Tobin a long look, “Tobin, I don’t know if that’s such a good…” She paused, seeming to ponder her word choice before changing course and asking, “Do you want her?”

“Totally.” 

“I say go for it, then, champ!” Emily slurred as she raised a glass in the air and smiled before bringing it to her lips.

“Tobes?” Lindsey spoke with a cautious voice. “Do you know you just said ‘Totally?’”

“It’s true.” Tobin nodded, casting her eyes down at the table. Her voice was somber as she spoke. “I don’t want to want her… she wrecked me, I know. But I do want her. I want her to be mine. And that’s why having her  _ only a little _ it’s a disastrous idea. Especially after everything she’s put me through. What kind of person doesn’t text for almost a month and then asks to hook up? And, why do I want to say ‘yes’ so badly knowing that she’ll probably be gone in an instant again?” 

Tobin choked on her own words as she admitted aloud that she still had feelings for Christen. Feelings beyond friends with benefits. She wanted Christen to be hers. She knew the right choice to make: to say no. She’d never be happy with just a piece of Christen again, especially after her reaction last time. She couldn't say yes, because she needed to really, fully, walk away from Christen. She brought her eyes up and looked into Lindsey’s. 

Lindsey deadpanned, “Do you need me to go beat her up?”

Tobin chuckled and Emily cackled. Lindsey added, “You know I’m kidding. But for real, do you need me to go tell her to go away?”

Tobin sighed, “Nah, but thanks. I really need to go talk to her myself. Maybe get some closure or whatever.” She slunk from her seat and hung her head as she made her way over to Christen. This was already harder than she’d imagined. As she walked she thought about all of the times in the past few weeks she’d prayed Christen would text her and take it all back. She braced herself as she drew nearer to Christen. 

As she approached, Christen started to smile at her but the smile faded as she saw Tobin’s expression. 

“Tobin…” was all Christen could manage to say as Tobin arrived next to her. 

The two stood in silence for a few seconds, neither able to form words. Then, as if possessed by some former self, Tobin fumbled out, “Can I kiss you?” 

“Yes?” Christen replied, her eyebrows furrowed. 

“Are… are you sure? Even if it means something to me?” Tobin countered. 

“Yes.” Christen replied more firmly.

Tobin put a hand around Christen’s waist, pulled her in slowly, and brought her lips to hover impossibly close to Christen’s. She hesitated, but, as if pulled by magnetic force, Christen closed the space between them. Tobin felt like she was coming home. It made her heart ache even more. She kissed Christen with everything she had, knowing the kiss would be their last. It was slow, and deep, and Tobin put every single feeling she’d ever had about Christen into it. Christen tasted like gin, and vermouth, and cuddling in bed on a lazy Sunday while snow blanketed the town outside. Tobin tried her best to live in the moment, to take every part of it in; to store the memory of it in her fingertips, in her chest, on her lips. And when she felt like she’d given it all she could stand she pulled back. She didn't pull away, though. Instead she rested her forehead on Christen’s and held her close, keeping her eyes closed as if the moment would vanish once she opened them. 

She could feel Christen breathing heavily against her as she offered a breathy, “Wow. Tobin.” 

Tobin hummed and gently opened her eyes as she pulled back. 

Christen’s eyes darted around Tobin’s face, seemingly searching for meaning. “It’s so good to see you, Tobin,” she offered. 

Tobin smiled slightly and nodded, acknowledging silently how good it felt to see Christen, too. She didn’t dare speak a word. She could feel the walls closing in around them and she didn’t want to make it happen any faster than it had to. 

All she wanted right then to savor this one last moment. This one last kiss. To take in everything she could about Christen before she had to explain herself and then walk away forever. 

Her hands were still on Christen’s hips and she moved one to her chin to settle her searching eyes. Christen looked directly at her and Tobin tried her best to memorize the patterns in Christen’s eyes. Christen finally looked away as she broke the silence, “I really, really want you. Can… can we get out of here?”

A pained expression spread over Tobin’s face as she pulled back further, taking one of Christen’s hands into her own. “And I really, really want you, too,” before adding with a deep sigh, “but we can’t.”

Christen’s face twisted in confusion and hurt. “You’ve never said no to Rule #4 before.” She bit her lip as she seemed to consider the implications of Tobin saying no. “Are… are you seeing someone or something?”

Tobin pulled back a bit more, heartache in her eyes. She stuttered out, “No. No. Christen, are… are you serious? We haven’t talked in a month. You just texted me Rule #3 and ghosted.” She swallowed hard and chewed on the inside of her lip.  _ Did Christen really have no sense that calling it off abruptly might actually affect Tobin?  _

Christen’s expression turned to one of concern and eyes flitted around Tobin’s face searching for more of an explanation.  _ Or perhaps she was trying to come up with one of her own?  _

“And, I broke Rule #1,” Tobin admitted, her eyes falling toward the floor, shoulders slumping. It felt like her lungs were refusing oxygen after offering a half truth. She softly added, “I’m still breaking it right now.” 

“Tobin,” Christen whispered, her tone betraying a smile. “Could we go for a walk?”

Tobin swallowed the words “of course” just before they pushed past her lips. She couldn’t bring her eyes up from the ground, she knew if she looked into Christen’s eyes, she might say yes to just about anything right now. “Chris I don’t think that’s such a good…”

Christen cut her off by putting her finger on Tobin’s lips, “No, Tobin, not like that. No rules. Just a walk. I want to have a conversation with you. A real conversation.”

Tobin allowed her eyes to move back up to Christen’s face, her muscles tensing as she braced for what she might find. Christen’s face was pleading, but marked by a surprising tinge of hope. It looked like she’d just seen daylight after a long night stuck in the rain. It melted all of Tobin’s resolve. She closed her eyes as she sighed and nodded. “Just a conversation?”

“Just a conversation.” Christen assured her. Tobin took a deep breath and opened her eyes to find Christen smiling back at her, eyes more hopeful than before. 

“Okay,” she breathed, any sense of self-protective fight she had leaving her body with that single word. 

Before they left the bar, she stopped by to fill Lindsey and Emily in on her plans. 

As they made their way out into a now-chilly spring night, Tobin was careful to keep space between herself and Christen. She didn’t trust her own willpower in that moment. Their kiss had been perfect, and she knew that if she let herself, she would want so much more of Christen. They walked in silence for a few blocks until they reached a city park. Christen held out her hand. Tobin hesitated, jaw clenching and heart racing. She started to raise her hand cautiously and Christen moved in closer to take it and pull Tobin behind her. Christen guided Tobin to a swing set, where she dropped her hand. They sat on two swings next to each other. Tobin thought she might be able to hear her own racing heartbeat in the quiet anticipation that filled the air between them. The skin on her hand prickled in the places where Christen had just touched her.

Christen was the first to break the silence. “Tobin, I called Rule # 3 because I broke Rule #1.” 

Tobin couldn’t help the hopeful smile that spread across her face. “Really? You broke Rule #1, too?” she asked, wanting to confirm what she just heard. A strange mix of elation and dread filled her chest.

“Really.” Christen confirmed, wearing a shy smile of her own. Her face sunk a bit, then, and she cast her eyes toward her lap as she slowly swung back and forth. “I was really afraid of what it might mean. We were both just getting to good places in our lives, and you seemed to be doing so much better…”

“I was.” Tobin asserted without hesitation. She quickly realized how the words might sound to Christen--like Christen had ruined Tobin—and she fumbled to recover. “I mean, I am. I mean I thought I was, and then I wasn’t, and now I kind of really am.”

Christen looked at Tobin with a pained expression and Tobin felt an entirely different sensation of worry sweep over her body. Her eyebrows shifted downward in question as she tried wordlessly to ask Christen what was going on in her head. Christen looked away from Tobin as she finally spoke, “I was doing a lot better, too. And I was scared, I guess, that it was because of you. That it wasn’t really real.”

“That what wasn’t really real?” Tobin asked, confused.

“Me, being better and feeling better. Us, being better. That maybe none of that was real. That it was just a consequence of really good sex distracting us.”

Tobin felt her heart drop from its place in her chest.  _ The sex really was just a distraction for Christen. _ She steadied her feet against the ground, searching for something to anchor herself on as Christen continued. 

“Okay, I guess I should back up. Remember that night on the roof of the parking garage?”

“Of course,” Tobin chuckled, shaking her head, feeling lighter as she considered the memory.

“Well, after I went back inside, one of my co-workers came into my office. She asked me if I’d had dinner with my girlfriend and without even thinking, I said yes. I just remembered you and me joking that I’d looked like we’d just gone to dinner instead of, well you know, and it didn’t even occur to me that you weren’t mine. It felt like you were mine.” Christen paused for a moment and Tobin opened her mouth to speak but found that all of the thoughts she tried to express died in her throat. So, she closed her mouth without saying anything. Christen started back up again, “But you weren’t, and I didn’t know what you wanted. It scared me so much to want you so much, but I wanted to try to tell you. So, I went home and I wrote you a letter. It was all about how I wanted to be with you and everything I felt for you. I convinced myself that maybe you’d say yes. But when I read it back over, I realized what I was feeling was so strong and I worried you’d just run away. It wasn’t what we’d agreed to. I realized that I hadn’t just broken Rule #1, I’d shattered it. Even more than that, reading my own words, I worried that everything good I was feeling, all of the progress I made, that it was just because I was falling for you. I worried that I only had hope because I had you. 

So, I did what I know how to do best: I panicked. I panicked and I ripped the note up and threw it in the trash and drank until I could sleep. The next morning when I woke up, I decided I was too vulnerable, so I just texted you the rule number. I cried, Tobin. A lot. I cried a lot over something that wasn’t even really  _ something _ . And, I started to worry about how I was wrong for you. I knew you were doing better and I worried that I wasn’t really and that I’d eventually just drag you down with all of my shit. So, I just thought maybe it would be better for us if I just called it off before I ruined everything with my feelings. I thought if I walked away I could pretend it was just friends with benefits and that it would be easier to get over.”

Tobin’s eyes were soft as she reached out for Christen’s hand, “But, Chris. I was. It was.” She heard her own voice shaking with regret. “I was yours. It took me a while to realize it, but I’d made myself yours.” She paused for a moment, before taking a deep breath and adding, “It actually sent me in a total spiral when I saw that text ”

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to…”

“Chris, no. You’re not responsible for me coping poorly, that’s on me. But I just wanted you to know that you weren’t alone.” Tobin rested her head on the chain holding the swing up and stared at Christen, who still had her eyes cast downward. “But…”

“But… what?” Christen replied.

“But why would you text me Rule #4 tonight like no time had passed? Do you not see how much that could hurt me? I felt like you just disregarded any possibility that I felt anything between us,” she gestured between them, “asking if you could use me for sex again without ever properly explaining why you called it off. It felt like you thought we could just pick back up where we left off.”

Christen traced patterns with her toes in the mulch beneath her feet, “I kind of thought that would be the only way I’d get to be with you again. I didn’t know that you felt anything. In fact, I convinced myself that you didn’t feel anything, and I was saving you from having to humiliate me and tell me that. I convinced myself that you didn’t reply to my text a few weeks back because you were fine with it being over. 

I know it doesn’t make sense, but when I saw you walk in the bar it just felt I’d never be able to stop myself from wanting you. From needing you. And, I had a little to drink and I just wanted you to be mine, even if it was just for a little while. I guess that… I guess I just thought maybe you would say yes, and I could get one more night with you. And I wanted that, even if it would destroy me a little. I just needed to be near you again.”

“Chris,” Tobin sighs out, pulling her swing closer to Christen’s, “I…”

Christen cuts her off. “I’m sorry, Tobin. I know I fucked up. I’m just a little crazy when it comes to you.”

Tobin sat in silence for a moment trying to breathe in the spring air at reasonable intervals; her head felt a little dizzy—reeling from the unexpected developments of the last few minutes. She considered the events that led them to this moment. She understood Christen’s impulse—to get to Tobin in any way possible. She’d honestly been thinking about Christen the entire evening at the bar. It was like Christen was an iron weight in base of her mind, pulling all her thoughts back toward their time together. And she, herself, thought Christen didn’t have any feelings about them. But the fact that Christen had seemed to discard her so easily, even if it was out of self-protection, still stung a little. It was something she’d need to work through properly at some later time. She finally replied, “It hurts a lot. All of this. But, I guess I’m a little crazy when it comes to you, too.”

A silence settled between them again. Tobin’s heart ached, but every part of her still yearned for Christen. She felt warmer than she had in weeks sitting next to Christen. She hadn’t even realized how cold she’d been, but it was like Christen was some essential part of Tobin’s blood. Without her near Tobin, everything in her body functioned at a slightly suboptimal level. Now that she remembered just how  _ perfect _ it felt to be in Christen’s presence, she knew she could never go back. 

Christen looked up from the ground and stared into her eyes. Tobin felt her body relent. There was no turning back, even if she didn’t know where this train was heading. “So, what now?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Christen said honestly. 

Tobin shook her head with a chuckle and stood up. She smoothed her hands across the front of her shirt and down her jeans, as if she was trying to get rid of wrinkles and drew in a deep breath. Christen cocked her head at Tobin. Tobin’s heart was pounding in her ears as donned her brightest smile and stepped forward toward Christen, extending her right hand outward.

“Hi, I’m Tobin. I think we had group together.” 

Christen offered an unsure smile and shook Tobin’s hand. “Hi, I’m Christen.”

“Christen, that’s a really nice name. I know a lot of Kristen’s spelled ‘Krist’ with an e-n and others ‘Krist’ with an i-n. Is your name spelled in any unusual way?”

Christen chuckled, captivated by Tobin's gesture. She stood up and moved in closer. “Actually, sort of, it’s spelled C-h-r-i-s-t-e-n.”

“Huh, someone else with a slightly unusual name. It’s like we were fated to meet.”

“Oh, is your name unusual? I know at least three other female Tobins,” Christen quipped.

“Do you now?” Tobin asked.“Because I met your friend Megan and she told me you only knew one. And that she was super-hot, and great in bed, and really rocked your world,” Tobin winked. 

“I guess you have a lot to live up to then, new Tobin,” Christen challenged.

“I guess I do. Say, if it’s not too forward of me, I’d really like to rock your world a lot better than _Old Tobin_ , what do ya say?” Tobin responded with a cheesy grin. 

Christen put her hands around Tobin’s waist and pulled her in. “I’d say, as a rule, I don't date anyone from group.”

Tobin leaned in and hovered just above Christen’s lips, “Then I’d say, rules are meant to be broken.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @notsocoldhearted on Tumblr for beta-ing the whole fic. You push me to be a better writer and I promise to list as few things as possible in the future. I hope you're doing well and not at all bored! 
> 
> And to Heath17_KO5 for the clutch feedback on this last chapter. I appreciate you deeply.


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